The Beatles drummer Ringo Starr‘s sonZak Starkey, who is also a successful musician, revealed in a new interview that he was previously “resentful” of his father’s band, due to how he believes it affected his own career from when he was young.
Speaking with Jonathan Clarke on the New York rock radio station Q104.3 about his career, the 60-year-old — whose mother is the late Maureen Starkey Tigrett, Starr’s first wife — shared that he had a complicated relationship with The Beatles early in his life.
“I’ll be honest. When I was a kid, The Beatles were in my way, if you see what I mean,” he declared, explaining that he regretted how much attention he got because of his connection to Starr and the band.
“I was in groups from a young, really young age, and I was getting press attention, but they were only paying me attention and they weren’t paying the rest of the band attention,” Starkey went on. “And I got bit resentful of this, and that sort of got me into a place where I sort of shunned The Beatles for a long time.”
Starkey noted that some people in his life attributed his strong sense of identity to this decision, but the drummer seemed to partially regret taking so long to listen to his father’s music, saying, “But at the end of the day, when I did listen to The Beatles, when I was about 25, it was like, ‘Wow, these guys are amazing! … I should have been listening to this forever.’”
Despite this, he admitted that there were positives to his choice, telling Clarke, “I’m glad I didn’t, you know, because I got into other things.”
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These days, Starkey is a strong supporter of his father, The Beatles, and their legacy.
Clarke asked if he would be checking out the new version of the 1990s docuseries The Beatles Anthology, to which Starkey replied, “I went to the premiere the other night, actually. I thought it was fabulous. I thought it was great.”
Like his father, Starkey has been a major presence in the music industry for decades. He recorded and toured with another legendary band, The Who, from 1996 to 2025, while he has also worked with other bands like Oasis, the Lightning Seeds, and the Semantics, among others.
Starkey is the eldest child of Starr and his first wife. The former couple also had another son named Jason and a daughter named Lee.
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This story was originally published by Parade on Dec 23, 2025, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.